Real Life Radio

Jack Hibbs: This message is true for all of us. The victorious reality is understanding who am I really? I am a created image of the everlasting God, and now I've been born again by the spirit of God through Jesus Christ. I have a new life.

David J: Welcome to Real Life Radio with Pastor Jack Hibbs. I'm David J, thanking you for joining us today as we listen, learn, and are challenged by God's word, the Bible.

Jack Hibbs: Hey everybody, listen. All of our Happening Now events are amazing, but this one's special. On April 22nd, on a Wednesday night starting at 7:00 PM Pacific time, I'm going to sit down with Chris McKenna. He is an expert on internet pornography and how it gets into your home, how it destroys your children, and how it destroys your marriage. You're going to want to be brave enough—I stress brave enough. You mention this topic and people don't want to show up. Show up and save someone's life.

David J: That's Happening Now with Chris McKenna and Pastor Jack Hibbs. Wednesday, April 22nd at 7:00 PM. Learn more at jackhibbs.com.

On today's edition of Real Life Radio, Pastor Jack continues his series called "Disciplines of Life" in a message titled "Disciplines of Deformity." Spiritual deformity has a special meaning. It's how sin and brokenness can distort our lives and our relationship with God. You see, deformity can bring pain physically, emotionally, mentally, as well as spiritually. But the healing comes when Jesus not only heals physical limitations, he also addresses the deeper spiritual conditions that will bring us both wholeness and restoration. So today, Pastor Jack teaches that people are spiritually impaired without Christ. We need to recognize our need for him so we can hear his truth and respond to it with meaning and purpose. Now with his message called "Disciplines of Deformity," here's pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs.

Pastor Jack, this message today is called "Disciplines of Deformity." Now most of us think of deformity only in physical terms, but in this message, you talk about something you call spiritual deformity. Can you expand on that a bit for me?

Jack Hibbs: We obviously live in a world that is fixated on the optics of things, and people are absorbed and consumed with the optics of how they look or how they do not look. But when we talk about the discipline of deformity, it is being honest enough with yourself to realize that it's not the external looks or what you're able to do with your physical appearance that matters. It's the fact that we wake up and realize that internally, inside, spiritually, we are deformed by sin.

We are corrupted in our thinking because of our depravity. And so when we talk about the discipline of deformity, we're talking about that we can actually overcome through Christ Jesus, the power of his resurrection, the power of his word. We can overcome those things that have marked us and scarred us internally. It doesn't matter how beautiful you are on the outside. Who are you on the inside? Are you carrying a load and a weight of internal pain, suffering, and sorrow? That, if true, deforms the way that you feel about or think about yourself and other people. And so when we look to the word of God, he actually heals us from the inside out and makes us new.

David J: I know a lot of new believers specifically find it surprising when they get to church and find out that Jesus, and Christians for that matter, don't avoid the broken places and broken people, but actually move toward them. You have to go where the lost are and you have to find them.

Jack Hibbs: I mean, that's so Jesus. In fact, the Bible tells us that wherever the common people were, even prostitutes it says, that's where you would find Jesus. Imagine a pastor or a priest or some cleric walking out onto the street and people ran toward him because they felt the love of God and they felt the grace of God. That's how we're supposed to be. That's how Jesus was. Those that were deformed on the inside ran toward him because there was this sense of hope in deliverance.

David J: Let's get into it.

Jack Hibbs: Tonight I'm going to be sharing with you a discipline that for me is the most meaningful in our entire series. This is a 31-part series and here we are tonight in part nine. But tonight is the one to me that means the most important to me. This discipline has shaped my life and it's the root to whatever, if any, influence I have had in your life or anyone else's life. This is the reason why tonight. It means everything to me.

I know the word deformity is something that we don't even want to even talk about. But it's something that I think all of us tonight will learn to identify with. The discipline of deformity. Matthew chapter 28, it begins with discipleship, verse 18. "Jesus came and spoke to them saying, 'All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.' That's a lot. 'Go therefore and make disciples, students, followers of Jesus, of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them.'" That's what you do with disciples after you preach to them and they get converted. They come to Christ and you teach them for the rest of their lives. "'Teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and behold, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.'"

Isn't that a great word? Jesus is going to be with you and I all the way to the end of the world. And so the discipline—hold your finger in Mark—but the discipline of deformity, nothing else seems to cut more deeply into the heart of the human being than if in fact you have or are suffering from a deformity. I'm going to explain that in a minute, but it could be the deformity of doubt, or of discouragement, of defamation maybe, even of disease. It could be a physical deformity and we'll talk a lot about that tonight.

All those things have their powers, but none of them seem to be as powerful upon our very psyche and our soul and our position in life when it comes to being a liberated Christian than the deformity that brings you and I about to the place of living either a fearful or cautious life. It does have to, in most cases, deal with a deformity physically that affects us emotionally. You can have emotional deformity and it not affect you physically. There's a lot of people getting by in life that way. But if you have a physical deformity or a deformity that's manifested in a physical sense, then it often affects us emotionally and mentally and certainly spiritually.

But again, there's nothing quite as painful as outward deformity because it causes a deep internal scar, emotionally often, mentally, pain. It affects how we act, it affects how we function, it affects how we live our lives. We can admit right now that when we see somebody going or living a life that they're having to drag through this life, a deformity—maybe it's a foot or an arm or a body part or whatever it is—and they're just deformed and contorted. There's a sense as Christians, I'm sure you agree with me, it's the Holy Spirit within us. We see them and the first thing that's upon our hearts is a deep internal grieving of our soul that if we could in the instant, we would fix them in a flash.

How many times we've seen a situation like that and we prayed, "Oh God, if you just give me a little bit of encouragement, I'll go pray with them right now. I'll pray, Lord, touch them and heal them right now." You know what I'm talking about? See somebody at the store or somebody at the beach or somebody out and about town and you're just moved with compassion. "Oh God, if you just give me the thumbs up." Because that's how I pray in my weakness, oh me of little faith. Maybe God's telling me, "Don't even talk to me, just go up there and pray for them."

But your heart is wrenched and then the next emotion that you have is to not look because you don't want to cause them to feel embarrassed. And then at the same time, there's a little bit of comfort when you do look away, isn't there? I know this sounds ridiculous to put these two things together, but last night on the news, there was this big thing on the news. I could hear them. I was in the kitchen getting some water or whatever and I could hear on the news about this animal abuse news story. As soon as I heard the word animal abuse, I don't want to hear that. I'll walk away. Child abuse, I walk away. I can't deal with that.

God knows to keep me away from two types of people: those who would abuse animals and those who would abuse a child because I fear the old Jack would be resurrected in an instant and that person would be dead. Because those things are defenseless. What it was, was some kids in Russia strapped a donkey to a parachute and catapulted it up from a boat up into the sky. I didn't watch it. I can't. I heard about it and that was enough for me.

Sometimes when you look at somebody that's been injured, hurt, or deformed, or crippled, handicapped we would say, physically challenged we would now say in our modern age, which is all for us, by the way, it causes us to feel better when we say that. But the fact is, down deep inside, there's a deformity. I want to say something tonight that may shock you, but I believe because I'm an old guy now—you can't pull a fast one on me—I'm telling you right now, everyone of us suffer with some form of deformity one way or another. It just comes down to how skilled we are at hiding it and camouflaging it.

Listen to this in Luke chapter 4. It's not going to be on the screens. Jot it down. Luke 4:16 says, "So he, Jesus, came to Nazareth where he had grown up. And as was his custom, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he stood up to read. And it was handed to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written," verse 18, Luke 4, Jesus said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me." This is your Jesus. He says, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

Thank the Lord Jesus, he stopped at that comma. In his second coming, he will pick up at that comma, by the way. He stopped right there. It is the acceptable year of the Lord. Then the Bible says he closed the book and he gave it back to the attendant and he sat down and the eyes of all those who were in the synagogue were fixed upon Jesus. And he began to say to them, "Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." In other words, the ministry of Jesus is a ministry of healing, of healing.

You might be here tonight and you say, "I don't need any healing, I feel great." Listen, down deep inside you need healing. Even as Christians tonight, we need a continuous healing from the Lord in our lives. There's always something challenging our lives and maybe more now than ever before. I know America is suffering, but honestly, America is not suffering enough yet. There's no way we're suffering enough yet. We're apparently going to have to go through much more before it gets better because of this one thing. I pray you're different in this church, but you've learned to cry out to God, but America is not crying out to God yet.

Until we have leaders in politics, in government, and in the pulpits saying, "Let's cry out to God," then we're not bad enough off yet. It's not bad enough yet. And so it needs to get worse, tragically. But all of those pressures could bring about a deformity of your heart and of your spirit. But we talk even of more things than that. In Mark chapter 7, your finger's there, right? Mark chapter 7 verse 31. For those of you who know me, this is a very dear portion of scripture for me in my life as we come to the discipline of deformity. You'll hear why if you don't know.

Mark 7:31, "Again he, Jesus, departed from the region of Tyre and Sidon and he came through the midst of the region of the ten cities—that's what Decapolis means—to the Sea of Galilee. And then they brought to him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech and they begged him and put his hand on him. And he took him," note this verse 33, "he, Jesus, took the man aside from the multitude and he put his fingers in his ears. That is the Lord Jesus put his fingers in the man's ears. And then Jesus spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, Jesus sighed and said to him, 'Ephphatha,' Aramaic, that is 'be opened.' And immediately his ears were opened and the impediment of his tongue was loosed and he spoke plainly. Then he, Jesus, commanded them, those who witnessed it, that they should tell no one. But the more Jesus commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it."

That is called in my opinion, godly disobedience. "And they were astonished beyond measure." And this is what they said, "He has done all things well. He makes both deaf to hear and the mute to speak." That's Jesus. Is that not awesome? Point number one tonight in the discipline of deformity is this: as a Christian, it's my victorious reality. When I put my, it's because this message is coming from my heart. You put your, it's your victorious reality. If you're a Christian tonight, mark this down. Right now, the life that you're walking through, the cross that you're bearing, the situation you're in right now is your victorious reality.

He is with you in this moment. What the world is guilty of is having made fun about all those things that now makes them feel bad. When we talk about deformity, the world used to poke fun at people who were deformed and now they feel bad about it. So now they change things around and they try to cover things up. The world doesn't know how to handle deformity or these what we call trials. I want to say a victorious reality. Here's what happens. The world tries to redefine those that are injured in this world. And yet as a Christian, I can tell you tonight the victorious reality is as a Christian, we learn to celebrate our weaknesses.

They are true power when it comes to living life. The very thing that you and I thought was the great weakness and the great handicap of our lives turns out to be the great victory that God brings through us in this life. The very thing that is a scourge upon your life is the thing that God turns around and makes it a tremendous powerful tool. And I know that doesn't seem to make any sense in this world. Maybe for you, it's a great sense of fear or inadequacy. Maybe you're timid. Maybe it's the way that you were brought up. I don't know.

But the world is uncomfortable with the issue of deformity because the world doesn't know how to handle it. It's beyond human scale, don't you think? Humanity struggles with handicaps and the first chance the world gets is to curse the very God for the handicap they see, even though they don't believe in that God. That's because the world has not been able to deal with deformity both among themselves or within themselves. Because without Jesus being on the throne of your life, you guys, you will be absolutely befuddled in this life without him ruling this ailment, whatever it might be.

But the reality is this, that deformity and pain and sorrow are converted. God loves to change these things around in our lives. Listen again to Mark 7:32. "And they brought to him," somebody brought to Jesus "one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech." The word deaf and impediment in his speech, the word in Greek means that there was a chain tied around the man's tongue. He couldn't speak. By the way, the Greek word implies that he once was able to hear and speak and at some point in his life, something happened to him. Maybe he had it when he was young as a child, had a fever. That's very prevalent. Because of the high fever, he lost the ability to hear and speak.

Very possible. But whatever it is, he once had it, now he lost it. But he's got friends and his friends bring him to Jesus and they want their friend healed. Is that not beautiful? You and I need friends like this guy's got friends. Isn't that great? They probably woke up that morning, they said, "Hey, Jesus is coming to town. What? Jesus is coming to town. Forget it, you're coming with us. We're taking you to Jesus." What a great friend. "Where we going? We're taking you to Jesus." And they take the man. I wonder what he was thinking. What do you think was going on in his heart and mind?

You and I live in a post-perfect world. The Garden of Eden was perfect and now it's not. Pain and suffering is the result of man's rejection of God, not God's rejection of us. Pain and suffering came about because man, starting with Adam and Eve, they rejected God's leadership. And by the way, you and I will suffer when we reject God's leadership because when you and I push away from him, we're going to experience pain. He doesn't bring it on us necessarily, but when we push ourselves away... I tell you what, today was just a picture-perfect postcard day, was it not?

Compare that to last week. Last week, you and I ran from shade to shade, to building to car and we tried to wear as least amount of clothes as possible while we were doing it. It was hot. And you think about rejecting God and pushing back from God. You know what that's like? When you reject God, like Adam and Eve rejected God, they pushed themselves away from his covering and you're out in the elements alone. And then when something happens because you've run away from God, you have a tendency to shake your fist at God and say, "Why is this happening to me?" And God says, "I'm over here." Remember he said, "Adam, where are you?"

And when we are away from him, mankind suffers deformity of all sorts. In Isaiah 43:7, the Bible says, "Everyone who is called by my name, whom I have created for my," what? "My glory. I have formed him, yes, I have made him. Bring out the blind people who have eyes and the deaf who have ears." Well, you keep reading Isaiah 43, he's about to do something about it. When Jesus came and said, "The kingdom of God is here," what did he do? He raised the dead, he opened the eyes of the blind, he caused those who were covered in leprosy to be made whole. The kingdom of God was upon them. This is a victorious reality for us who are Christians now.

But this message is true for all of us. The victorious reality is understanding who am I really? I am a created image of the everlasting God, and now I've been born again by the spirit of God through Jesus Christ. I have a new life. And that new life carries with it residuals of the old world. And you and I have not left this world yet. We are in route to heaven and we drag, as it were, Linus and Pigpen and Charlie Brown as they walk along. You ever seen those guys? Charlie's kicking a can, Snoopy's dancing in the background, Linus has got his thumb in his blanket, and there's Pigpen with the fumes rising up. All of them have their residuals, except Snoopy. He's the only guy that's got his act together in Charlie Brown, you know.

But you and I have these things and tonight you can either be a victim and you can walk around regarding the discipline of deformity and say, "Oh you know, oh my goodness, oh whatever," and you can just do that and you're actually more than handicapping yourself. But listen to this, it doesn't have to be like this. 1 Chronicles 4:9, his name's Jabez, remember him? "Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, 'Because I bore him in pain.'" The name Jabez means grief, sorrow, disappointment, to cause pain. Can you imagine being born that? "What's your name?" "Grief." That was his name.

His mom must have been a horrific pregnancy and delivery and then he must have been... the Hebrews wait a while before they name their child, they watch their attitude and stuff and then they name their kid. And she said, "Hey, grief, get over here. Because I bore him in pain." And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, "Oh, that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory, that your hand would be with me and that you would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain." So God granted him his request. What a great word. God can change life. And the Lord's on a mission to rescue humanity from itself and this thing of deformity.

Isn't it strange that just north of here, about 30 miles, there are people no doubt statistically probably a vast majority of whatever surgical enhancements are taking place are taking place just 30 miles north of here in Hollywood, in Malibu, in Bel-Air. And people who look into a mirror because of their broken heart and they may not have Jesus in them, they see this incredibly deformed life.

David J: Pastor and Bible teacher, Jack Hibbs here on Real Life Radio and his message called "Disciplines of Deformity." Thanks for spending time with us today. You know, this message is part of Pastor Jack's series called "The Disciplines of Life." It's a series that highlights the disciplines of a Christ follower and the high cost of sharing your faith with others. And we'll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio.

Hey everybody, have you ever thought about what's after life? Do you know that the Bible teaches life is after life if you know the Lord Jesus Christ? My good friend Philip De Courcy has written a great book and that's the title: "Life After Life: Exploring the Bible's Wonderful Promises about Heaven and Eternity." Published by Harvest House Publishers, get a copy for yourself.

"Life After Life" by Philip De Courcy, exploring the Bible's promises about heaven and eternity. It's available for a gift of any amount at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com.

Hey, thank you again so much for listening. And if you'd like to hear or see more of what we do here, you can always go to jackhibbs.com for all the latest on what's going on with this ministry. And please, if you're ever in the southern California area, come see us at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills. We'd love to see you there in person. It has been so good to be with you today and I pray you find yourself in the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. See you on the next episode.

This program is made possible by the generous contributions of you, our listeners. Visit us at jackhibbs.com. That's jackhibbs.com. Until next time, Pastor Jack Hibbs and all of us here at Real Life Radio wish for you solid and steady growth in Christ and in his word. We'll see you next time here on Real Life Radio.